August Rush

'August Rush' is basically just a retelling of Oliver Twist, only "Oliver" is a musical prodigy. Music and sound is what drives this film and, while there is nothing overly original about the plot or character development, the movie works. Freddie Highmore wonderfully portrays a child who is lost in the world, but who finds himself through the music of his own mind. Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys Meyers both play their parts very well, but they remain firm secondary characters. In fact, pretty much everyone but August is a secondary character. This movie is about August's journey of self discovery disguised as his quest to find his parents.
As I said earlier, the movie works. The music is wonderful, which one would hope for in a piece as sound driven as this. The only aspect I found distracting, though interesting, was seeing/hearing the world through August's perspective. When this happens sound and movement overwhelm August and the viewer. Other than that, I heartily enjoyed the film and would recommend it to anyone who enjoys music.

'Compass" Translation Shines

Epic fantasy book + great cast + good effects + spice of scandal = intriguing holiday movie

I am sure that we all know by now that the more epic and the more fantastic the movie, the more I want to see it. I have been looking forward to seeing this movie all year long and I was not disappointed. I make this statement knowing very well that there has been little but Harry Potter worth getting excited over this year (much to Lunanshee's disgust).

Most of this movie was admirably faithful to the book; surprisingly. I agree with some of the edits that Chris Weitz made to the script, namely the removal of a few minor characters and Lyra's extended stay among the Gyptians (which was pretty unnecessary even in the novel, in my opinion). I didn't really see the need for the addition the weasley Fra Pavel (admittedly played well by Simon McBurney) except that it is just too confusing to have the original person who tried to poison Lord Azriel in the movie (I am still not very clear why the person in the book did it...). If anything, the addition of this character introduced more religion into the narrative. (I could actually go on about this a great length, but the short of it is that I don't think that Chris Weitz took out many religious references, but that he put even more in!).

One (professional) critic stated that this film succumbed to the typical device of making the battles bigger than they were in the book to give the story more excitement and 'draw' (LotR-The Two Towers/Battle at Helm's Deep, anyone?). I watched for this through the majority of the movie and didn't find it; in fact, I thought that the edits to the story helped the pacing of the movie while still maintaining the proportion of events. That is, until the last (and here) climactic battle between the hoards guarding The Station (did it remind anyone else of the White Queen's Narnian castle??) and the 'forces of good' (Gyptians, Witches, and Ice Bear). Still, I think the battle was done well and that the stakes were sufficiently high so that the viewers were engrossed by the action. They also did not linger to long and sufficiently obscured the majority of the carnage (easy to avoid blood-splatters if you are bundled up in sub-zero gear). Even the end of the ice bear combat was sufficiently tame, given it's potential for gore. I applaud the director for this, because he doesn't dwell on the bloodiness of the conflicts, but rather what they mean to the characters and the action of the series.

The casting was so spot-on that I can hardly believe it. I think I blogged before about how perfect Nicole Kidman and Sam Elliot are for their parts; they were MADE for these parts, and pull them of delightfully. I am still not sure how two beautifully blue-eyed parents produce a brown-eyed main character (could they not have had Daniel Craig wear contacts? He is imperious enough, no matter what color his eyes. Mrs. Coulter needs hers to be blue, I would contend)?!
Speaking of, I think Dakota Blue Richards was a marvelous Lyra! Really, she was the perfect hellcat for the character, without being off-putting, shrill, or whiny. I do hate it when children in movies are entirely too precocious; it is sickening, really. Nope, this actress was a great find, even though I didn't like her as much as I wanted to (I say this because we are trained to always have sympathy for the main character/hero).

--See 'Comments' for more discussion--

'Riddick' Stalks Again?

Eye Heart Riddick

Yay! I saw this article on Rotten Tomatoes today:

A Third Installment for The Chronicles of Riddick?: David Twohy prepares to enter the UnderVerse.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/chronicles_of_riddick/news/1690384/

So, here is the discussion: Is it worth it to make another Riddick move?

My answer: yes it is, but there are conditions. If Twohy will go back to the promises made by Pitch Black, I am there! If it is going to be another Chronicles of Riddick, I am out.

While I was amused and pretty pleased with the casting in "Riddick 2", the movie more or less ended up feeling as empty, shiny, cold and over-priced as a hugely ornate marble chess board. I hate chess, so perhaps you will understand the simile. But I love looking at the chess pieces--they are always so different and are usually all beautiful. That is how I felt about the actors in the second film, with the exception of Alexa Davalos. I like keeping an eye out for her in different places, like Angel. May I suggest her as one of the characters in the upcoming Watchmen? I think she is totally able to carry off being a super hero! On the other hand, Judi Dench? I have to resist the urge to gag when I see her character; a travesty.

Pitch Black is another matter; the story is small (as was the budget, apparently), but excellent. The effects are also pretty good, and at least adhere to some bounds of an alternate reality, unlike the sequel's. All in all, I like the less grand, but more sincere package, and I find the earnestness behind the filmmaking more appealing than the bombast that followed in Riddick 2.

I had heard that there was a trilogy in the offing, but I figured the third movie was The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury. I meant to watch it, but never did. I think it was partially out of disgust; I thought it was a cop-out not to have another live-action movie to fill out the trilogy. I am happy to be wrong in this case.

So, my fingers are crossed. What do you think about a possible Riddick 3; worth the time?

Seriously?!?, part 1

Early 'Sesame Street' Deemed Unfit for Today's Kids
http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/2007-11-19/

DVDs of early seasons of Sesame Street bear a warning to parents that they may not be appropriate for small children, the New York Times observed today (Monday). Carol-Lynn Parente, executive producer of Sesame Street noted that in the early days of the show, a regular feature was a parody of Masterpiece Theater, featuring Alistair Cookie, played by Cookie Monster, who appeared with a pipe. "That modeled the wrong behavior," Parente observed. Oscar the Grouch appeared too grouchy. "We might not be able to create a character like Oscar now," she said. The Times also noted that in the DVDs (Volumes 1 and 2) Cookie Monster can be seen "in his former inglorious incarnation: a blue, googly-eyed cookievore with a signature gobble ('om nom nom nom')."

This is sooo beyond ridiculous! I had heard that the Cookie Monster's eating habits were sent to the health spa (read: fat farm) in the sky, but seriously! I remember Allistair Cookie, and he may have once or twice blown soap bubbles. Both Lunanshee and I were big Sesame devotees, but neither of us have ever smoked in our lives. While bingeing on cookies has likely occurred to both of us, it is likely the yumminess of cookies to blame, not a furry blue monster! And kids; they get grouchy. Why can't there be at least one person who gets to say what they are thinking without getting censored? Grouchiness was part of Oscar's charm, particularly when he sang a song to Santa on the Christmas special!

In my opinion, this is an over-sanitization of kids' lives, and utterly ridiculous! And even better yet, this article was considered bigger news than:

Kidnapped Iraqi TV Reporter Released

What is this world coming to? This is my rant for today; thanks for reading along.

PS- 'om nom nom nom'? Classic; sheer brilliance in onomonopoetic form. (How is that for a 25-cent word?!)

Naps-a-Lots' All-Tme Favorite Movies

Naps-a-lot Bear's Usual Suspects

My list is more or less in order of how much I favor them all the time (I don't really have to be in a mood to watch movies, generally speaking. However, movies do vary for me in terms of the amount of times I could watch them end-to-end without hating them. I will indicate the ones that I could watch forever with a *).

The Usual Suspects* (1995) (most perfect movie ever made; please feel free to discuss)
Tank Girl* (1995)
The Princess Bride* (1987)
You've Got Mail** (1998)
Labyrinth (1986)
Clue* (1985)
If Lucy Fell* (1996)
Amelie (2001)
Bridget Jones' Diary* (2001)
Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971; not the newer abomination)
Silence of the Lambs (1990)
The Secret of N.I.M.H. (1982)

A few of these movies I experienced for the first time with Lunanshee, like The Princess Bride, Labyrinth and Clue (and If Lucy Fell, I believe). It is interesting to me that we are each other's best movie buddies, but our tastes differ quite a bit.

--see 'Comments' for movies that almost deserve to be on this list--

American Gangster

Two lead actors + great supporting cast + overly long running time = questionably truthful biopic

I am sure that we have all seen the very cooly-edited trailer for American Gangster; it has been showing forever, it seems. I liked the stylization that it employed, and it sold me on the movie. To be truthful, the actors did too, so I was eager (though not jumping up and down) to see this bio-pic.

Overall, I liked the narrative, even though I felt the movie was longer than it needed to be. It must be hard with a bio-pic to decide what to explore on-screen. There is a lot that makes up a life, particularly one such as Frank Lucas'. They skim over his troubled past by dropping bread crumbs such as a family heirloom of a bureau being confiscated when he was 5 years old, and another very tragic incident involving an older cousin. There are no mawkish montages of childhood difficulty that the main character must overcome, which is good, and these small glimpses are enough to help inform us about what helped to 'make the man'. I don't, however, think that they should have skimmed over the fact that Frank Lucas has"fathered 7 children, as far as he knows". I read this on the ridiculously short entry on Wikipedia (yes, I know that I did not go to the original source on this, but frankly this person is not worth the effort).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Lucas_%28drug_lord%29

What I take from those words is that Frank Lucas sowed more oats than the movie implied. It never touched on his fidelity to his wife, or any of the 15 years he spent as his mentor's driver/bodyguard. There is only so much that can be brought to life on screen, and I think that the writers did a good job of covering ground, but keeping the action rolling along. Overall though, the movie felt more like a fictional story than a real one. Perhaps I feel this way because the 'rise and fall' story of a violent man, particularly a gangster, is nothing new, and this one is (for the most part) true. Reflecting on it now, it also seems a bit uninteresting.

The movie left me feeling conflicted the next day about how to reconcile Denzel's smooth and contained portrayal of a man who was most assuredly a monster. Granted, if Frank Lucas hadn't been there to provide the drugs, someone else would have (there is always 'some one else' waiting in the wings). Those people may not have been nearly so interesting, and may not have been as successful (yes, I know that there is an inherent oxymoron in that statement). The hardest thing for me is that I didn't despise Washington's Lucas at the end of the movie. Sure, he got a measure of justice, but I didn't hate his character. In a small way, I admired his ingenuity; using the war in Vietnam to facilitate keeping his costs down and his product moving--that was pretty clever. On the other hand, he must have been an supremely violent man to have stayed on top at all, as evidenced by his willingness to shoot competitors in the head on the street, etc. The movie shows us that he had his own brand of ethics, which may or may not have been true; I enjoyed watching how gravely serious Denzel was while placing a coaster under a sweating glass on an end table. His character was a smooth, sophisticated operator, and almost a joy to watch.
I looked Frank Lucas up on Wikipedia because the math for him being sentenced to jail at the end of the movie for 15 years and getting out in 1991 didn't compute for me. After looking online in the most cursory of ways, I found out that he was convicted of new drug charges after being released the first time. Obviously, the guy was not reformed at all. I value Wikipedia for presenting lists of the ways that movies diverge from their book-origins; why can't there be one for Lucas; obviously this movie takes a ton of liberties. I can overlook a few, but I think there are many in this case.
I really did like those last few seconds of the last scene, where Lucas is released from jail and looks as if he is grimly realizing that his world no longer matches how the outside world has moved on. My Significant pointed out that the final scene looks much 'dirtier' than the rest of the film, and he is right (although I hardly know how this is true, given the time spent in slums and apartments of junkies with festering needle wounds in the rest of the film). That last scene is a grim punctuation mark at the end of a film.

Which leads me to the question 'what was the mission here?' It could be that the filmmakers were attempting to package Lucas' story as a cautionary tale, showing in a(n only slightly) negative light how attractive the life of crime was to the younger and more innocent nephew who gives up his life-long dream of being a pitcher for a major league team to traffic drugs. There are kernels of this in the movie, but if there are moments of anti-drug/thug-life messages, there are also a lot of moments that glorify the pro-gangster aspects of this person's life. I think this explains my reluctance to commit to approving or disapproving of the character, and ultimately of the film.
--see 'Comment' section for more--

Lunanshee's All-Time Favorite Movies

These are not in a rating order, since their rating depends on my mood. I may also add more later: ; )

• Legend
• Labyrinth
• Neverending Story
• The Princess Bride
• Goonies
• Braveheart
• Willow
• Practical Magic
• Gone with the Wind
• Beauty and the Beast (Disney version)
• Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl
• LOR: Fellowship of the Ring
• The Last Unicorn
• Howl's Moving Castle
• Adventures of Unico
• Brotherhood of the Wolf

What are your favorite movies?